The authority to decide his fate.
Those words struck Ye Li's heart like three invisible sledgehammers, leaving his ears ringing and his stomach churning.
He stared fixedly at the dying figure in the cage. Those faint groans now sounded like a curse from hell, burrowing into his mind and throwing it into turmoil.
Killing.
In his twenty-odd years of life, that word had existed only in movies, novels, and news reports, a distant and abstract concept. He was just an ordinary office worker from a peaceful world, a modern man who would feel physically ill even slaughtering a chicken himself.
Yet now, he had been pushed to the edge of a precipice, forced to decide another person's life or death himself.
Ye Li's face visibly drained of color, turning deathly pale. His lips trembled slightly beyond his control. He wanted to say something, but his throat seemed blocked, unable to produce a sound.
He wanted to refuse. He wanted to shout at Athena, at the unseen Giovanni: I can't do it! I'm not an executioner!
Yet cold reason coiled around his impulsive emotions like a venomous snake. He understood clearly that he could not refuse. This was no reward at all. This was another test from Giovanni.
A test more blatant and more brutal than any before it.
That man was watching him coldly through Athena's eyes from some shadowy corner. He was observing, evaluating, watching how Ye Li would react when faced with this bloodstained power.
If he showed even the slightest weakness, hesitation, or reluctance, his "value" in Giovanni's eyes would probably plummet at once. Giovanni needed a "Strategist" who could handle his problems and adapt to the darkness, not a softhearted "good man" bound by morality.
A pawn who could not even bring himself to act against